Thinkpads Forum

HELP! How does one enable PCMCIA services on a 560Z under MS-DOS when booting from a floppy?

My 560Z hard drive failed and I need to reinstall W98SE from scratch on a new hard drive but my CD-ROM drive connects via a PCMCIA card and I can't get the machine to recognize the PCMCIA sockets when booting from an MS-DOS floppy.

Thanks, in advance, for any assistance.

CardSoft PCMCIA drivers for DOS

Regards,

James

I already have those. There are 800K+ of them and that is too much for a floppy with an operating system and a few other misc files on it. Which one or ones are applicable to the 560Z?

First, if you're installing a new HD you should have made it bootable by now so that there's no necessity to continue to BOOT from a floppy.

Once the HD is bootable, install the Cardsoft software following the instructions in the .txt file referenced on the URL I gave you earlier.

Regards,

James

It strikes me that what you suggest is easier said than done. The Windows 98SE Boot floppy that came with my W98SE CD gives you three choices to get things going, two of which require a working CD-ROM drive. The third choice simply boots the machine from the command.com file on the floppy. While there is the fdisk.exe file on the boot floppy that will permit partitioning of the new HD, there is no format.com file to format the new HD so that you can put the Cardsoft drivers somewhere (I suppose I could find a copy of format.com from one of my other machines and copy that to the boot floppy). Once the new HD is formatted, command.com and the system files should be copied to it and I could then try to run the Cardsoft installation files.

Even then, which of the .exe files on the Cardsoft driver disk do I invoke under DOS to make the CD-ROM drive available? What has me so puzzled is that the 560Z has such a different PCMCIA arrangement compared to a 560E I used to have. Putting W98SE on a new 560E HD was a snap as the drivers on the W98SE boot floppy would allow access to the external CD-ROM drive. Not so with the 560Z.

I'd be greatful for some additional assistance or referral to a publication that covers this situation in detail.

See this URL.

Then here.

Odd that your 98SE BOOT floppy doesn't provide the option to add CD support.

Whose CD drive are you using? Did it come with a floppy to load drivers? Have you TRIED running FORMAT/S from a DOS prompt after booting from the floppy?

You could try this floppy to get your machine started with external CD support!

Or, you could get the BOOTDISK.EXE file from here, then read and follow the instructions in the accompanying .TXT file.

The latter would be my preference for obvious reasons.

Regards,

James

As a non expert, I think we need to step back and start over here.



WHAT IS the exact model of the CDROM/PCMCIA combo you have?

I have, for example, an old IBM travelstar 8E external hdd, with PCMCIA card. It requires it's own special drivers to be operable from a floppy. (The driver, which accesses the card "directly" turned out to have nothing to do with IBM, and in fact, I could not find the driver there at IBM)

I also have, for example, an old Panasonic 4x external PCMCIA CDROM, and it too is operable from a floppy, if the proper drivers are loaded. It is a KXL-D740, and requires a specially configured boot floppy to work THAT DRIVE WILL NOT WORK from a "standard" W98 boot floppy.

Not all this stuff works from "card services"---and I'll admit I don't know all the in's and outs, but if you post the model of the CDROM..........

The thinkpads.com boot disk is well thought out and is an interesting fix to loading loading W98SE from a floppy. I have to commend the disk's creator for getting that many drivers together in a single place. Unfortunately, the disk's creator doesn't appear to have anticipated the disk's use with computers without in-built CD-ROM support -- such as the the Thinkpad 560 series.

440roadrunner's comment neatly captures my problem and highlights why conventional W98 boot disks won't work. It is a two-step process. While I have the drivers for my external CD-ROM unit and know how to get them to load under DOS, what I can't find the DOS driver file that tells the 560Z to enable its PC card slots so that the DOS CD-ROM drivers I have can work.

When the 560 series first appeared (we had over a dozen 560E units where I worked at the time), we had this problem and the special PC card slot DOS enabling driver came from somebody other than IBM. I still have one of the boot floppys we created for the 560E when we moved the 560E units from W95 to W98SE.

Because the 560Z (and 560X, if my memory is correct) use a Cardsoft driver to enable its PC card slots (rather than the way the earlier 560 Thinkpads enabled their PC card slots), the key is finding that particular Cardsoft PC card slot DOS enabling driver. The file IBM/Lenovo provides is much too complicated from an installation perspective when one is working with a new HD. Once the driver is in hand, it is a fairly easy thing to format the new 560Z HD with DOS, create a custom config.sys file that calls the driver, and then read the W98SE CD-ROM in the fashion the creator of the thinkpads.com boot disk's creator envisioned.

Accordingly, I am still stuck.

Henrik, you misunderstood part of what I was trying to say---namely that both the devices I mentioned that I have, DO NOT require any cardsoft stuff to work.

The special drivers for those two devices are "stand alone" and will work on either my 600x, my old 360xx, or my little mijit 510x series.

So, what is the model of your (cdrom) device, that is still not clear?

You are correct. Apparently your external CD-ROM drives are IDE or ATA interfaced devices and can work without a special interface. In my case the CD-ROM model isn't relevant, although it is a Pioneer PCP-PR24, because it is a SCSI-2 CD-ROM drive and there is no on-board SCSI support in the 560 series Thinkpads and, so far as I know, in no Thinkpad version ever. As I previously mentioned, I have both DOS and Windows versions of the drivers for this CD-ROM drive. The issue was and is how to get the PC card slots to work under MS-DOS so the SCSI PC card interface card gets recognized and the CD-ROM SCSI drivers will load.

HenriK wrote:The thinkpads.com boot disk is well thought out and is an interesting fix to loading loading W98SE from a floppy. I have to commend the disk's creator for getting that many drivers together in a single place. Unfortunately, the disk's creator doesn't appear to have anticipated the disk's use with computers without in-built CD-ROM support -- such as the the Thinkpad 560 series.

Thanks, but yes I did.

I used that little utility innumerable times with an external Panasonic CD drive connected via PCMCIA card.

Regards,

James

HenriK wrote:In my case the CD-ROM model isn't relevant, although it is a Pioneer PCP-PR24, because it is a SCSI-2 CD-ROM drive and there is no on-board SCSI support in the 560 series Thinkpads

I've got what you need!

Give me a day to find the floppy I made years ago for some ancient NEC Multi-Spin external SCSI CD drives connected to an NEC PCMCIA to SCSI card.

It's got everything you need, BOOT files, Card and Socket Services, and SCSI drivers.

Regards,

James

PS: Please update your location in your profile!

Yes, Henrik, my external CDROM is also a SCSI card, made of and for the Panasonic drive. I'll find it and post a link.


Here's some of the stuff on the floppy for my Panasonic drive. Note the complete lack of any cardsoft stuff, only what is needed to access the card, drive, directly


The README file is generated by the setup program


in A:\cdrom is aspif365.sys, kmecd.sys, mscdex.exe, and the readme.txt




The autoexec and config.sys of the boot floppy:


autoexec.bat says:


a:\CDRM\MSCDEX.EXE /d:PCMCIACD


config.sys says:


REM ******* KXLC002 *******
DEVICE=a:\CDRM\ASPIF365.SYS /port=300 /mem=CE00
DEVICE=a:\CDRM\KMECD.SYS /d:PCMCIACD
LASTDRIVE=M
rem device=c:\pcmi80cl.sys
rem device=c:\stidehdd.sys



and, I would almost bet that here:


http://panasonic.co.jp/pcc/products/en/ ... nload.html


is where you need to be


or maybe here at Pioneer:


http://www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/content/sup ... tml#dcdrom

440roadrunner wrote:Yes, Henrik, my external CDROM is also a SCSI card, made of and for the Panasonic drive. I'll find it and post a link.

Certainly would have helped if he'd shared that little fact with us from the start!

Regards,

James